Patient with diarrhoea spread SARS, claims report

A SARS patient with diarrhoea infected other people in a Hong Kong apartment complex as the disease apparently spread into homes through a sewage pipe linked to poorly sealed water drains, an official report said yesterday.

More people who came down with severe acute respiratory syndrome in Block E of the Amoy Gardens apartments also got diarrhoea, creating huge amounts of contaminated faeces that spread the virus through pipes in Hong Kong's biggest outbreak of the flu-like illness, said the health secretary, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong.

Rats and cockroaches also may have spread SARS, but only incidentally after they picked it up near the apartments, Yeoh told a news conference.